Oculus Rift To Feature Eye Tracking Technology

Virtual reality gaming and media content is all the rage right now and all major tech companies are capitalizing on this by creating VR headsets and VR content. The market is filled with VR headsets from the likes of HTC, Google and even Sony but the name that stands out the most is Oculus Rift. Looking back its kind of funny knowing that Oculus Rift started off initially as a kickstarter project and then it was acquired by Facebook and managed to become the biggest name in the virtual reality world.

As previously stated, the VR market is filled with fierce competition and in order to surpass its competition and increase sales percentages at the same time, Oculus Rift is always looking to improve its VR technology by adding new features. Recent reports have been pointing out that the developers behind Oculus Rift are working on creating eye tracking technology which will then be included in the Oculus VR headset. This comes as great news for VR fans because using eye tracking technology will completely change the way VR content is watched. Games are going to become way more immersive than they already are with the addition of this new technology.

Oculus acquired Eye Tribe which is a company that specializes in developing eye tracking technology and now we can be sure that with the help of Eye Tribe Oculus will add the new technology to its VR headset in the upcoming months. The eye tracker will ship in the form of a small box that can be plugged in a PC and will then start following the direction in which the user is looking at. What’s better is that while this might be ground breaking technology advancement in the VR world, it will also come at a rather cheap price of $99.

14 COMMENTS

I believe this has potential for the future, but as a matter of personal principle I will never buy a headset from Oculus.

Once a second generation of VR headsets come out, with increased PPI/resolution, I’ll be going for a VIVE or whatever partner Valve chooses.

Oculus betrayed many of those who helped fund their DK1 through Kickstarter. I got one click away from ordering a DK2 from them, but now I’m glad I didn’t. The whole Facebook buyout and closed store is a no-no for me. I vote with my wallet.

“Oculus betrayed many of those who helped fund their DK1 through Kickstarter.”

I backed the original Kickstarter Rift DK1 and they gifted me (and all DK1 backers) a $600 Rift “CV1” as a thank-you. Also the campaign made the long-awaited VR revival happen, and this time it’s here to stay. Yes, Oculus has had no shortage of product fulfillment woes and PR fiascos this year, but it’s hard to imagine a more successful Kickstarter for both the industry and its backers. The Rift Dk1 is perhaps the best tech crowdfunding campaign of all time.

I’m with you 100%. Oculus went full scumdog mode after Facebook bought them out. Their dumb walled garden / forced “SDK”/spyware install and shady “exclusivity” deals.

Valve and SteamVR try as hard as they can to make sure everyone with every headset can play everything. Oculus try as hard as they can to lock your into only THEIR headset that runs on THEIR software. I find it disgusting.

Also acquisition of talent. The company’s talent can often be more valuable than the products they’ve developed, though in this case there’s an obvious purpose to eye-tracking in a VR HMD. I’ll be surprised of “2nd gen” VR launches without it.

I don’t think I can recall any IP needed to create a HMD that is not prior art to oculus to justify paying 2 billion for it. HMD have been around for a long time, the only difference is now they are small and affordable enough to go mainstream.

“HMD have been around for a long time, the only difference is now they are small and affordable enough to go mainstream.”

Prior to the current crop of HMDs starting with the DK1, a consumer HMD had:
– No tracking
– A tiny (40° for the HMZ series, typical FoV was ~20° for something like the ST1080) field of view
– Low refresh rate
– Full-persistance panels
– Often very low resolution, sometimes even driven entirely by a composite video connection

And guess what, those cost in the region of $1000 MSRP too! People who have just seen the recent marketing for VR HMDs have no clue the sea-change in the HMD marker Oculus brought,

LOL, you don’t need “intellectual property” to put a “larger display” in a HMD, all you need is higher pixel density. There was head tracking in HMDs at least a decade back. Oculus neither invented “higher resolution” nor produce any actual displays. That was enabled entirely by technological progress, and oculus had absolutely nothing to do with that happening, it didn’t speed things up, it just popped up when technology advanced enough to make it mainstream.

As for any “contributions” that it may have brought, those mainly have to do with hype that still fails to materialize into something other than further filling a few guy’s pockets. That’s what they all do, pick things that are “new” only because they were previously too expensive to go mainstream, and hype the hell out of them, to milk naive and easy to impress dummies, and in the end we aren’t any closer to innovation and in a short while it becomes yet another short-lived fad. A few years ago the same thing happened with 3d printers, they were supposedly make a revolution, today nobody cares anymore, they don’t even make the headlines.

Don’t forget that pupil tracking allows for a more accurate projection, particularly for closer objects. When the pupil moves, it changes the position in which light is entering the eye. I think it was Carmack that mentioned this and how it was part of the ultimate goals of VR HMDs.